Why NASA Will Never Send People to Mars
Updated Dec. 04, 2001
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Recent NASA decisions show us that government lacks the leadership to go to Mars.
Dec 02, 2001
NASA answers to two groups of people, congressmen and lobbyists. –
Lobbyists represent the large aero-space corporations, who, ultimately,
are the principle constituents of NASA, rather than the citizens of our
country. I hate to say that, since I am a conservative and like big
business; nevertheless, it is the truth. The more expensive and complex
is a project, the more money these companies make. These companies are
not necessarily evil, they simply have no motivation to present cheap
plans to NASA since they would make less money on these projects.
Furthermore, making a product cheaper and more efficient means spending
money on research. Therefore, not only would such projects make less
money, they cost more company resources, are more complex, and have higher
risk. Congressmen also like large expensive projects because they create
lots of "pork-barrel" jobs for their constituents. For the same amount of
money, research creates jobs for less people because researchers are more
expensive to hire. Since votes are rightfully apportioned by head (one per
person), not by
intelligence, congressmen naturally favor projects which create the most
jobs for the money. These two forces biases NASA towards complex, expensive,
but inefficient and uncreative projects. Two examples illustrate this
point.
The space shuttle is unnecessarily expensive and complex. – The space shuttle is a hybrid vehicle. Unlike biology, one frequent characteristic of hybrid human designs is that they are not as good as either one of the products they combine. Examples of such products which failed are the car-plane, the video-phone, and the many hybrid products shown on late night TV. The space shuttle is neither a good rocket nor a good airplane. The structural components which allow its descent to be controlled (such as wings, rudder, and landing gear) add to its weight and limit the amount of payload which it can lift into orbit. The complexity of its shape makes construction and maintenance unnecessarily expensive. For example, every single heat tile on the shuttle has a unique design, which means that each tile is custom made, making impossible the savings afforded by mass production.
The International Space Station (ISS) serves no useful purpose. – There are no resources in orbit except sunlight, a great view, hard vacuum, and weightlessness. Since there are no material resources in low Earth orbit all food and supplies must be lifted from Earth at an enormous cost. The purpose of ISS is not to produce electricity or to take pictures of the Earth, these tasks can be performed much more cheaply and effectively by an unmanned satellite. The purpose of ISS is to commercialize the benefits of weightlessness and to study its effects on the human body. However, we already know the effects of several months of weightlessness on the human body, and it is unlikely that any manned trips in the next few decades will last more than several months. Any trips of longer duration will probably use artificial gravity produced by rotating the space ship. The commercial benefits of weightlessness appear to be somewhat limited, consisting mainly of the growing of specialized crystals and the manufacture of ultra-pure materials. However, vibrations created by the movement of humans can disrupt these processes. Therefore, these processes can be best exploited using robotic orbiting labs which may be controlled from earth. Furthermore, such labs would be much cheaper than manned orbiting labs.
The most valuable resources of space lie in the planets of the solar system, their moons, and the asteroids and comets. The resources used to build and operate the space shuttle and the international space station could have gotten us a long way towards establishing a partially self-supporting colony on Mars, its moons, or an asteroid.
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The history modern exploration shows us that government lacks the kind of leadership necessary to go to Mars.
Dec 04, 2001
Much of the expansion of the European peoples and culture which occurred
during the last 500 years was spearheaded by the effort of individuals or
small enterprises. Christopher Columbus was a single man with a dream.
He was hugely more successful than the Portuguese king Henry the Navigator
whose voyages around Africa preceded those of Columbus. The Spanish
conquistadores, for better or for worse, were individuals on a quest.
These early conquests were sanctioned by the Spanish kings, but the
design and drive behind these ventures were the dreams of individual
entrepreneurs.
Many of the original British colonies in North America started as
commercial ventures of small associations of merchant adventurers, which
were the stock issuing corporations of the day. The British influence in
India began with the presence of the British East India company, a
commercial venture. The armies followed the traders. Even Hawaii was
taken over by a small group of businessmen and plantation owners.
Of course, where humans go evil goes mixed with the good. We do not
endorse all the methods used in the expansion of the European people.
However, we now face an opportunity to colonize and exploit uninhabited
and unclaimed lands full of unmeasurable wealth. We will attempt to
do it a justly and equitably as possible. However, both ancient and
recent history suggest that governments such as the United States or
the United Nations will not be the driving force behind the colonization
of space, our new frontier.
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